ghosts and gifts for inktober, tbt, and if

Today is the first day of October, and the start of inktober, a month long challenge to draw with ink every day. It's also Thursday, which is the perfect time to post old images for tbt (Throwback Thursday), one of which is my pick for the Illustration Friday prompt this week (prize).

Let's start with a puppy prize from 2008 for tbt and IF (always good to start with a puppy):

There are a lot of people who would love a puppy as a prize! A puppy is an upgrade from the usual goldfish prize they give out at carnivals. Before you accept your puppy prize, just make sure nobody in your family is allergic to furry pets. If they are, please accept this goldfish (also from 2008, with an added fish):

Since today is the first day of October, it's time to change my avatar again (I usually change it every month). My avatar is a crop of another tbt image (from 2009):

And here's the full image it came from:

Last, but not least, since today is the start of inktober and the first day of the Halloween season, I drew this picture of a ghost with a tool belt (with my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen):

I wanted to see what it would look like with color, so I added some digital color in a limited palette:

And just for fun, I did a full color version too:

Happy October everyone!

robots, teddy bears, Popsicle passion, and toy tools

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is passion.* My picture for this week is a new sketch that I'm working on for my portfolio. It's a girl and her robot friend who love their teddy bears (they have a passion for bears, and toys, and teddy bears).

Here's a closer, cropped view, where you might be able to see that the girl's teddy bear is also a robot (as evidenced by the antenna on its head):

The hearts were already on the teddy bears when I sketched this yesterday. I made the hearts red to stand out more, plus I've always loved the way the color red pops when you put it in a black and white drawing.

My first thought for this week was my old drawing of a ghost with a passion for Popsicles, so I'm posting the ghost too (updated to fit in with the theme):

* When I found out about the theme this week, it was Thursday night at midnight (so technically Friday, but only by a few minutes). I was about to post my IF drawing for the prompt last week, which was toy. (BTW, they used to change their topic Friday morning at 10am EST, not at midnight, so I was surprised that they had already changed it. Would have posted earlier if I had known they were posting new topics Thurs. night now.) I had three possible images for last week, including one that I spent almost the whole week working on, but in the end decided it's not yet ready to share. The second image was the robot-girl-teddy-bears sketch and technically fits into the theme this week, so I posted that for the passion prompt.

The third image I was thinking of showing last week is a word that's hidden on a tool belt in my picture book, EWE AND AYE. One of the main characters, Ewe, is wearing a tool belt in one of the scenes. Originally, there were four tools in her belt. When I went to final art, they felt too crowded, so I removed one of them. Afterwords, I realized that the remaining tools spell out the word, "TOY." It was a happy accident and works with the narrative of the art in the book, so I left it in. So far nobody has noticed. Here's what it looks like:

Website: www.sruble.com

Book: Ewe And Aye written by Candace Ryan, illustrated by Stephanie Ruble - in stores now!